Thrash
by stephtron312
Summary: "One day, sweet cheeks," he paused at the door, finger pressed into the doorknob, "You're gonna do something selfish. And you know what? You're gonna damn well like it." Follows the events of 4x10 and 4x14 with Merle mixed in.
1. Chapter 1

**_For sweettooth7 who asked for a Marol story. Turned more into an expose about Merle but I hope you like it! Big thanks to Lamport for betaing!_**

 ** _Pt. 2 coming soon!_**

* * *

 _"Don't you ever go around thinking you're some kind of hero, 'cause you're not. Only ones that ever get to be a hero is the ones that end up dead. And that ain't gonna be me or you, Dixon. You know where we're gonna be? Wandering all by ourselves, wondering how in the hell you escape the dark side of things. Answer is we don't, because men like us are darkness. Men like us are selfish. Men like us are always at war."_

That was the last thing Wallace had said to him, deep in the dark brown Earth, with the summer rain pelting the ground around them. But it was a cold night, with the kind of chill that only a blanket of arms and a soft kiss could warm. The foxhole was starting to permeate around them, like it was the only place in the world that they could ever fit into. And it was still—quiet except for the splashes. But if he timed it right, Merle could concentrate in between the incessant drips and hear all the silence the war had to offer.

Barely eighteen years old and the draft had felt like the answer to a prayer he never had the guts to utter. Vietnam, the only pocket of the world outside of the old man's reach, and he was practically giddy to get there.

His lieutenant, Wallace, was older by three years but it felt like millenniums. He had himself all figured out, and by the way he told it, he had Merle figured out too. Cut from the same cloth, he used to say. Running in circles until they realized that Hell went a whole 360 degrees around. War gave Hell a place and a time and a face. Made it just as real for everyone else as it had always been for them.

There was an air raid that night. Never saw it coming, they would say, if only we'd known then we wouldn't have lost half the damn platoon. That was the story they always told though, wasn't it. Like they half expected armies to stick together in neat little lines and announce their arrival with a flute and a drum corps.

It was fast. Hard hitting flashes of light that made Merle think that this must be what heaven looks like when lightning strikes. The ground shook, crumbling and flinging across his face in a mixture of mud and blood—whose he couldn't be sure of. The taste of it like sharp, shocking metal, angry and filling in his mouth. Wallace's body folded, molten and melding with the bottom of the dirt hole.

Merle clawed at the walls, his fingers slick with sweat and guts, until his body popped up onto the plateau. Smoke hung in the air, forcing its way into his lungs until he couldn't stop coughing, and he had to lay there, his body convulsing against his will to keep moving. Wriggling on his belly, he wormed his way around the hollowed shelters of his brethren. Their screams and heavy breathes mixing, growling and drooling in his ears amongst the blasting bombs and biting bullets. He didn't stop once to check to see who could be salvaged, who he could drag up to his level and shimmy their way out together. That'd only slow him down. He couldn't die here. No, he had to get back to that baby brother of his, who no doubt sported a black eye and a hopeful heart that he'd be coming home. Even if he never stayed around for long.

Aiming for a clearing in the not too far off distance, he crawled along the edge. Carefully picking his way through rock and filth, ignoring the growls that pleaded with him, until one latched onto his ankle.

"Get off me," he kicked, flipping to his back to see the poor desperate soldier that would rather drag him down then see him survive. He seemed already dead, the way his fingers were bony like a skeleton, the skin dripping off. The soldier's helmet must have blown clean off, because the crown of his head was bloody and broken wide open. His eyes were hollow, unseeing as the soldier leaned closer to Merle's ankle. The teeth were crooked and yellow as they opened to take a piece of him into his mouth. "Get off!" Merle roared, the butt of his rifle like an extension of himself as he leaned forward to drive it into the dying soldier's skull.

It was the squelch of his blade into the soft, rubbery brain that brought him back to it. He stared at it—the contraption that was his arm; the blade a perpetual middle finger to the world. Dazed, he looked around as the jungle of Vietnam molded around him to the grassy turf of a repurposed prison yard. But it was still a war.

He ducked back down just in time for a bullet to split into a walker trying to make a grab for him. He continued his crawl to the opening, realizing now that it was the fence. When he reached it, his fingers hooked into the chain link, and he swung himself upwards until the blade of his arm rushed into a stranger's throat. With his boot he pushed the woman off, steadying himself against the fence until he gained his bearings. It was all a blur, people running in every direction, fire and heat and gunpowder covering every inch of the prison yard.

He hadn't flashed back to the war like that in years, but what's the point in trying to fight his way back to reality if he was still encircled by flames?

 _Daryl._

He whirled around himself, trying to pick his brother's face out of the dead and the living and the ones in between. He spotted the Governor, bent over a bloody mess of a man in the grass he had just crawled out of. Michonne, the spitfire that she was, sneaking ever closer, her sword drawn and ready to serve her own justice. To his right, Merle heard the engine of the bus sputter a warning before it jolted forward with who knows how many people stuffed inside. But he knew Daryl wouldn't have gotten on, so he didn't bother to remember which direction it raced off to.

Daryl had to be somewhere, and he tuned his ears to listen for the swift slick of an arrow cutting through the air. In the corner of his eyes he saw just a flash of something blonde and small bounding around the corner.

It was one of her kids. Carol's girls. It was the smaller one, Mika, if he remembered her name right. She was running fast like she was trying to keep up. If Daryl was going to stick to someone that wasn't his own brother it'd be those two girls.

He took one last glance around before running after the child.

* * *

"What do you mean you ain't seen him?"

"I didn't see your brother, Merle. I didn't see a damn soul except these kids," Tyreese growled quietly, bouncing the Grimes' baby in his arms to quiet her. She had been crying for the near half an hour they'd been running for.

"We're going back then," Merle huffed, stalking in circles around the two little girls that stared up at him.

"Can't. There's nowhere to go but forward."

"Man, what do you know?!" He growled, spittle sparking from the corners of his mouth.

From the way Tyreese was barring his teeth, grinding them together to keep from biting, Merle knew he couldn't be pushed. Not that he feared a fight with the bigger man, but killing Tyreese would just leave him with three whiny brats that he had no desire to take care of. Sure, he could leave them, but once he found Daryl, if he found out about it, well there'd be no back peddling from something like that.

"Gotta be somewhere," he muttered, kicking at some loose dirt until it clouded around him. A rock flew off, hitting against something hard that echoed a growl back to them.

"We have to keep moving," Tyreese said, ushering the girls forward and hitching the baby up higher in his arms.

Merle snarled at the distant pack of walkers. Spitting in their direction, he dug his blade into the closest tree, notching out a distinct mark.

* * *

"…I want Carol," Mika whined, her little sobs growing more irritating with each step.

"Well she's not here," Lizzie reminded her, blunt and dull. She contemplated for a second, reaching into the baby bag and pulling out a knife and sheath.

Mika attached it to herself, looking awkward and unsure as she smoothed her tiny fingers across its hilt.

"It's gonna dark soon," Lizzie looked up to the two men, as if they hadn't felt every dip of the sun as it reached the horizon. "Where are we going?"

Tyreese looked back at her, sorrow and frustration wound around his deep eyes as he tried his best to keep them together.

Merle spit onto the ground, surprised by how much saliva he'd gotten out considering how dry and thirsty his throat was. The sun was setting fast, and their fun little walk around the woods was fruitless. They hadn't found another survivor, no water, and barely any squirrel to eat. Merle had managed to grab one, skinning it quickly and giving it to the two girls with a grimace. His stomach rumble only squandered by Tyreese's, and the baby's cries as the other man tried desperately to get her to down any amount of formula. But not too much, they only had a few bottles to last them until…well, until forever was how it looked.

He thought after finding the Governor, and then warming his way into the prison that he'd be done with this. This migrant wandering towards some unseen destination, the horizon seeming further away with each step. Dixon's were loners, that's what he knew his whole life, but even they needed something concrete. Something in the back of their mind to anchor them from floating away in the endless current of blankness that was so easy to get lost in.

He needed a base camp. He needed his brother.

The last time he had to do this, meandering through the woods once he got out of Atlanta—one-handed and resentful—wasn't something he wanted to repeat again. With his stump, half dried blood and half phantom limb. He lost count of how many tries he tried to grab something with his right hand only to swish through the air like a ghost, how many close calls he had with a rotting corpse because he went for his knife with the wrong hand. How many squirrels he couldn't skin.

Starved and half delusional when the Governor happened upon him, he had spit at the man. But he liked that, admired the dogmatic anger the older Dixon exuded as he laid against a stump and shot erratically at every minute sound he heard. The Governor cleaned him up, weaponized him, and dropped him in the only place that ever felt natural—right in the middle of a fight. Didn't even matter whose fight it was, as long as he was swinging.

"Better find a place to rest. Next thick spot of trees we come to should be good. Put the girls against the trunks, you and I can keep an eye on the outer line. Be easy to spot if anything's coming," Merle muttered, the exhaustion having crept its way onto his tongue. He was glad for it though, for the way it made his suggestion sound lazy and not thought out. He didn't need Tyreese or these kids to get the wrong idea that anything besides finding Daryl was a concern of his.

Tyreese nodded, looking between the two girls and Judith, his arms curled around her protectively. She was quiet for now, tuckered out from all the crying to finally rest her head along the soft of his chest. He moved them forward.

"Is everyone dead?" Lizzie asked, trailing behind as she waited for Merle. She was only met by his soft scoff, and a wave of his blade for her to keep up to Tyreese and her sister.

Merle left another notch in the tree, a symbol from their childhood. When he and the other neighborhood boys would go running through the woods, little Daryl always wanted to tag along. The other kids didn't like that idea so much, felt too much like babysitting. So their favorite game was to lead him deep into the trees and scatter as fast and as far as possible. Merle joined in, because what else is there to do in an empty town with empty heads but try to be a part of it somehow? He'd leave a notch in the trees that he passed, a trail for Daryl to follow as he tried to find the boys. _I told ya_ , he'd say, their breathe ragged and hands clutching knees, when Daryl would find them out in less than a minute, _My baby brother is a smart one_.

* * *

They wedged themselves beneath the trees. The hunger that rumbled through them was quiet, like even their stomachs' were starting to give up on the idea of eating any time soon.

Merle watched as Tyreese wound the ragged cloth around his wound. He could help him out, but he figured he'd let Tyreese struggle. The man wasn't nearly as desperate as he should be.

He looked over to where the older one, Lizzie, sat on a log. Curiously, he watched as she held her knife, slicking it into something unseen on the other side. Her lips pulled in concentration, an oddly satisfied look taking hold of her eyes as she weaved her arm back and forth. He stood up, but the ruffle of dirt didn't even catch her attention. Moving around to other side of the log he saw the blood red bunnies, her knife still digging into their softness. She met his eyes when he flicked them to her, finally stopping, her smirk fading away but there was still a serenity to her expression. She stared into him, challenging him to speak up or tell her to stop. To do something. He held her there, let her worry that maybe he would, before he shrugged his shoulders and swept his gaze across the tree line.

It wasn't anything he hadn't done before. He understood the way tension could slowly tear from the inside out. The need to rip into something before he was splayed apart for the world to gawk at made his muscles itch if it'd been too long since a fight or a kill or a hunt. Feeling a body go limp, even something already so fracturable and small, could help him stand a bit straighter.

"You see something?" Tyreese asked, grunting as he held the rag between his teeth and tried to tie it off.

"No," Merle said, almost passively, as he walked away from the girl. "Nothing out there 'cept more nothing."

Judith started to cry, fidgeting on the dirty blanket Tyreese had put down on the ground for her. Some semblance of keeping her above the world she was born into.

"Hand me a bottle," Tyreese asked, a plea in his tone as he picked the baby up into his arms. "Merle!"

He looked down at the baby bag that he stood next to, but didn't move to get anything from it. It'd be nice to see a walker, nice to stretch his arms. They felt so tight, limp at his sides. He hated running.

Lizzie moved past him, grabbing a bottle from a bag and handing it over. "We shouldn't be out here."

With a lingering glare, Tyreese shifted his focus to Judith, holding the bottle to her. The crying kept coming, as she pushed the bottle away with a defiant shake of her head. Not far from them the leaves rustled, the sniveling sound of something drawing nearer.

"Walkers!" Mika cried out, full of fear that made Merle cringed. People didn't survive who weren't used to being threatened.

"Come on," Tyreese sighed, gentle as always, as he gathered the baby and the girls up. "Let's go."

The three of them moved quickly, unified as they hurried to walk through the night. Merle didn't move, the sweeping of leaves under heavy feet growing closer. His fingers flexed into a fist, muscles pulling towards the sound.

"Feel free to stay if you want," Tyreese called back, a quiet shout from where they stood at the crest of the woods. Lizzie stilled, staring back at him with that same provocation in her eyes. Daring him to stay. Daring him to come. He wasn't sure which it was but it compelled him towards them.

"Go on," he bit out, gruff and annoyed as he prodded the girl forward, cutting on a notch in the tree he passed before falling in step with their light jogging.

* * *

They had walked till the light crested over the horizon, their feet slack and lazy as they dragged forward. Judith's quiet fussing slowly progressed, and Tyreese lifted her up to sniff at her bottom.

"She needs a new diaper," he commented, laying the baby gently on the ground.

"You're one hell of a Mama Bear, you know that boy?" Merle sucked his teeth, smirking as the baby gave way to a tantrum and the other man tried to desperately to calm her down.

He couldn't stand the way Tyreese gently pleaded with the baby, as if she could answer. "What do you want?" he asked of her.

"Probably not your scary ass."

"Either help me or shut the hell up," Tyreese snapped, glaring up at him even as his hands held tenderly against Judith's stomach, trying to keep her from squirming right into the ground.

He rolled his eyes, looking to the two girls who stared back at him, inching away from the hostility between the two men. Grumbling he stomped towards the diaper bag, ripping one of the white diapers from it and throwing towards Tyreese.

"Thanks," Tyreese muttered beneath his breathe.

"Whatever," he snarled, eyes cast aside from the crying child. No amount of diaper changing or soft trails of fingers from Tyreese or Lizzie were going to calm her down. Wailing her tiny lungs out, Judith was an unstoppable force all her own.

Mika was starting to panic. She fidgeted from her station at the other side of Tyreese, eyes darting between Judith and the woods that surrounded them.

"They're coming!" Her fingers slid over Tyreese's wound causing him to shout at her. She jumped back in as he stood, rounding on her unintentionally.

"Don't yell at her! She doesn't understand walkers!" Lizzie cried, standing in front of her little sister.

"You're the one who doesn't understand them!" Mika shouted back.

"Quiet down!" Merle shouted, his voice cutting between the girls' fight. He moved close to the brambles where the rustling came from, looking back to Tyreese with a nod. Raising his blade to the air, he was ready to slice down. The leaves moved again and he waited in the tortured seconds until the figure popped out of it. Ducking down, his heart pumped with adrenaline. Wings flapped inches from his head as the bird flew upwards.

"You're a bunch of pussy's, you know that?" he turned to laugh but Mika had taken off into the woods, Lizzie close behind her. Tyreese looked at him with so much weight carried on his shoulders. He pointed to the diaper bag before taking off after the two girls. Merle cursed, snatching up the bag in his hand and running to catch up. He forgot to mark the tree.

* * *

Mika hadn't gotten far, and they found her sniveling against the trunk of a tree. Merle couldn't listen to the back and forth apology, the prodigal take away lesson Tyreese tried to jam into her.

"It's good that you ran."

Bullshit.

Merle scoffed, and before Tyreese could turn to chastise him screams sounded from beyond the wooded area. For once they were on the same page, connecting the screams to someone from the prison. They could know where their missing siblings were, or, even better, be Sasha or Daryl themselves. Though he knew Daryl wouldn't be screaming like such a sissy. Tyreese set the girls back to back, Lizzie holding tight to Judith and Mika raising a clunky gun in front of her.

When he saw the man and his son, he almost turned back around, despite Tyreese jumping in like some kind of white hat hero. He didn't care about saving anyone, but the sound of carnage tugged at his heartstrings. Grabbing a walker at the scruff of his neck, Merle spun the poor creature around so he can face him while he killed it. He laid a few slashes across its chest and arms just to get his blood pumping, feel the taut of his muscles as he threw his body weight into each swing. He worked the corpse like a boxer would a punching bag. Lost in the space between his knuckles as he pounded his left fist across the jaw, unhinging it into a perpetual open expression. He swiped his blade across the throat, the head flopping and rolling behind the walkers' shoulder and back, the body crumpling to a heap beside the severed skull. Having lost its ability to chew, the head could only draw its unseeing eyes in a lazy line, back and forth as it stared up at the sky.

A voice called his name, one that was familiar but he couldn't stop the blood rushing through his ears long enough to place it. Figuring it was Tyreese he turned from the body at his feet, noticing for the first time that the fight had ended, with both the son and father bit and bleeding. Maybe if he hadn't been so lost in his fight he could have saved them. Maybe he didn't care.

"Tyreese. Merle."

He blinked. Once. Twice.

Tyreese's breathe caught on an intake as he went rushing to her, his body swallowing her in relief. But Carol's eyes were stuck on Merle, unsteady but weighted. Hesitant. There was something blocked about her. She was stiffer than she used to be, watching everyone from the corners of her eyes. He smirked, rolling his neck against the newly relaxed muscles of his shoulder, and watched her shift into Tyreese's embrace. He had to admit, the woman almost had bigger balls than he did. Almost.

Their reunion was interrupted by the babbling of the father.

"There's a place," he said, breathless, "Called Terminus. Follow the tracks and you'll find it." He passed out, his chest barely rising.

"Bunch of piss and shit," Merle muttered, stamping towards the barely dead man and sticking a blade through the center of his eyes.

* * *

They walked along the tracks anyway, finding the first literal sign of Terminus after half a mile.

He trailed behind them, the two girls holding each other's hand, practically skipping as they led the way up the tracks, stopping to count wildflowers or inspect berries. The energy had changed between them, hopeful alleviation that made him wonder why this pixie woman was more equipped to ensure survival than he was. Even he had to admit that after they started moving he felt less strain, like maybe finding Daryl wasn't as hard as it seemed, like it was a real possibility that his brother might just pop out from the tree line any minute.

She explained to Tyreese about how she had seen them running, and followed them. She told them about staying behind on her run with Rick to gather more supplies. There were too many hesitant pauses filled with convenient explanations for it to be true, but Tyreese wasn't of the mind to notice.

"I saw you running through the woods. I lost you but…"

"...You found us." Tyreese smiled at her, a hand briefly pressed to her arm as she shifted Judith against her chest. The corners of her lips almost quirked up, almost allowing her to believe her own story.

"You seen Daryl? See which way he went?" Merle asked suddenly, his voice rasping against their contentment as he wedged between them.

He watched her carefully, the tiny step back she took, the way her blue eyes sunk, focusing into the ground so far that it was like she could see what was buried beneath it. She snapped back to him, her mouth pressed tight as she faded, an answer to a question no one was asking. The hush fell passed her, penetrating into the woods surrounding them. There'd be no more talk on the subject of Daryl. He could try to push it out of her, but it'd be at the cost of something far worse than her silence.

"How about Sasha?" Tyreese inserted.

She swallowed, hard and bitter. Tyreese looked earnest, an expression Merle couldn't pull off.

"There wasn't a lot of people left when I got there. Just saw the girls and that's the direction I went in. I didn't…there wasn't anyone else."

Merle's nostrils flared as he forced a breath out of them. A click of his teeth and the corner of his mouth smirked as he nodded at her. "Course there wasn't," he pushed passed them, knocking the girls' hands apart as he moved to the front.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey guys! Hope you're ready for part 2! I can't thank you enough for the interest in this fic. I don't think I've ever worked harder trying to write something so your feedback is so appreciated! Enjoy, and thanks for reading! xx_

* * *

Letting the brush of leaves tickle against his skin, Merle moved slowly through the trees. He had scouted for two hours, about a mile and a half radius. He was looking for something to eat, among other things, but came up with nothing except the unsettling quiet of a world gone dark.

When he made it back to the tracks he saw as Carol told the older girl, the smirking one, to sleep. She curled herself up with Tyreese who was already snuggled close to Mika, trembling and crying as he did at night. It made Merle's stomach tighten.

He knew men like Tyreese in the war, the ones that got booted out early, eaten alive before such a thing was so commonplace. They were the ones that cried for their mamas and clutched to gritty half torn pictures of their sweethearts back home. The ones that never bothered to become a man because they were too busy trying to remind the world that they were still a kid.

But he had to give Tyreese some semblance of credit, he made it farther than Merle would have thought he could. He was in the same spot Merle was and he figured he had to be some kind of tough son of a bitch to do that. Even if he was a sniveling one.

Carol sat at the edge of the tracks, back straight with the baby cradled so naturally in her arms. He forgot how she used to be someone's mother and something about seeing her with someone else's child curled his stomach. He half-turned from her, looking out at the elongating tracks that disappeared far into the blank night. They seemed endless.

"You should sleep," her voice flowed down his back, prickling every fine hair that lay on his neck. He shrugged, a half-hearted shoulder quirk. Lightly, he stepped towards her, two long strides, and pulled his body down to the tracks beside her.

The quiet wrenched between them, a hard mass that pushed against him uncomfortably. He watched the two girls wiggle closer to Tyreese, drawing to his body warmth and closing in around him on either side. It made him itch, the kind of contentment they could have just from being near him, even as they slept.

"I have some lotion," Carol said, and he drew his fingers away from the cuff's edge of his other arm, not realizing he had started to scratch. "In my backpack, there's a small mason jar."

His eyebrows stitched together but he did as instructed, pulling out the small jar filled with the heavy whitish cream.

"Get this on your run with Rick?" he asked, trying to untwist the cover one-handed.

"Something like that," she answered, absently, pulling the jar away from him. With one arm still holding around Judith, she put the jar in the crook of her elbow, bearing down as she used her other hand to loosen the top.

"I could have done that," he mumbled, unbuckling the metal casing that covered him. Dry, flaked skin called for his fingers to grant him relief but he kept his restraint.

A small smile blew across her face, there and gone with the breeze. She held the jar between her knees, dipping her slender fingers into it and motioning that he hold his arm out to her. Slathering the cream across him, she smoothed it evenly and massaged it into his skin with a gentle deftness that relaxed more than just his need to scratch.

"What's your plan?" His voice grated into the night, and his arm felt colder without her touch against it.

" _My_ plan?" she concentrated on covering the jar, putting it beside her in the fallen leaves and dirt. "The girls need safety, and I'm going to do whatever I need to. You can be a part of that or not."

He smiled, unable to help himself as his mouth spread wide letting his teeth poke out. He licked his dry and needy lips, welcoming her severity. She was cold and warm, a dichotomy swirling around in that same tiny mouse body of hers. When she glared at him, steely blue eyes that darkened in the shadows, he only smiled more.

"Where would you suggest I go, sugar?" he leaned closer to her, ignoring the gurgling baby that twisted between them.

"You could leave us at any time Merle. _You_ know that. _We_ know that. You're the most fit to survive on your own," she said simply, no callous in her tone. She didn't want him to leave but there was no point in trying to anchor him to her.

"And what about you?" his mouth curled higher on one side. "Are you fit to survive on your own?"

He expected the cracks to form then, watching her chest for the eventual heavy rise and fall as her breathing changed. But it didn't happen. She wouldn't take his bait and she held his gaze with unnerving resolution.

"What are you getting at, Merle?"

He knew this Carol, and he liked it. This was the woman that came to him, when he first arrived at the prison, unabated as she threatened him. She called for no bullshit, only giving weight to the answers she wanted. He guessed after a lifetime of it, she stopped playing by other men's rules.

She was never a mouse, he decided, but a wolf playing coy to get into the good graces of a loving family. Hiding the ugliest parts of her, the ones that seeped in moral ambiguity to get what she needed. And God be damned of anyone who stood in her way.

She was just like him. He bet that if they wanted, if they allowed themselves, they could break against each other. Crack wide open just like real people do.

He leaned back, allowing air in between them. "These kids aren't going to make it, and Tyreese is hanging by a string. All he needs is to feel distracted again, settle in somewhere and you're doomed, sister."

Her look cut across him, mouth pulled tight. She was one step away from growling. He let out a small laugh, easing his back down onto the dirt.

"Buy maybe it won't be so bad that way," he added, a final thought as he rolled to his side, grinding his face into the flecks of earth and pebbles. "Nobody needs other people to live."

* * *

Sleeping on the tracks in shifts broke the night up evenly. Carol had shaken him awake after three hours and Merle paced the outer rail on his turn, hoping he could stomp out the sound of Tyreese's wailing with the crunch of his boot.

He was exhausted the next day, leaning against the trunk of a tree, tuning out the comfort Tyreese and Carol tried to give each other as she fixed his wound. She took Mika for a walk soon after, as Tyreese and Lizzie played a pathetic game of I Spy in the woods for reasons he'd never quite understand. He wasn't interested in adventuring, just living in a quiet space for a moment. They left him with the baby, who hadn't made much of a peep since there was a woman in the group. Some kind of motherly instinct voodoo that must have quieted the little worm.

Mika had come running back not even a half hour later all smiles and sunshine, rambling on about a house and even going so far as grabbing his hand and pulling him from the tree. He yanked away from her tiny, unblemished skin, grumbling and eyes of fire as he glared down at her.

"Just grab the damn baby," he rolled his eyes at her sheepish expression, the way she shriveled into herself at his irritation. It was disgusting, and like a flash of a mirror he could just see his little brother. Daryl at six years old, hiding in the wedged space between the refrigerator and the wall as his daddy wailed and hollered and broke a few glasses.

Kid had to toughen the fuck up.

He followed her begrudgingly to where Carol and the others were, letting her struggle with both the baby and the diaper bag strapped to her meek body. Barely shrugging at the cold look Carol shot him as she relieved the child of her haul, taking it all for herself and leading them to the cottage.

He'd be damned if he ever knew a more perfect home than the one that was standing in front of him, amidst a pecan grove. Plenty of room and grass to sow, the house looked almost cared for, without much rot or destruction. It was a dream house, the kind he used to drive passed on his Triumph when he'd take long winding highways to some seedy back country bar. They were always filled with a kid or two, maybe a dog and a cat that would sit on the porch to shoot a drowsy glare at his direction. He'd always rev the bike extra loud, add just a tinge of disturbance to the perfect little lives that must have hidden away inside of such a perfect little house.

"If this ain't the Devil's trick then I don't know what is," Merle muttered, a sigh clenched between his nostrils as he followed Carol into the house.

* * *

The light from the afternoon sun suspended sooty ashes in the air as they walked into the doorway. The three of them waited, breathes held as they strained to hear the shuffling that had become so routine to them, that the absence of a walker was a stranger event than seeing one.

Upstairs a floorboard creaked, and Merle could already envision the satisfactory tear of flesh. He nodded to Carol, pushing Tyreese out of the way to ensure that he'd be the one to dismantle the creature. It was up in a bedroom, made of plain walls and a plainer bed. It stumbled towards him with a growl and outstretched hands. Merle smiled for the first time that day.

He didn't believe in false promises, which was exactly what this picturesque house felt like. It's what Woodbury was, and what the prison turned out to be. Merle wasn't one to gamble on an unknown outcome, and there were few things left in the world that he was certain of.

But, a walker was a sure thing. He knew exactly what they wanted from him and how they'd try to get it, and he knew without a doubt that the best high nowadays was gutting one wide open with the pound of fist and the drag of his blade.

Bouncing on his toes, a quick roll of his neck, he winked at the walker who continued its gawkish lurch. He evaded it with a side-step, gripping the back of its brittle skull, and feeling the hairs crumble in his fist, Merle slammed the head into the corner of the bedside table.

Now curled into a heap on the floor, Merle went to stick his blade through the neck, to skewer the dead body and hold him up for another punch or two. A shot sounded from outside the house, and he forgot the walker in his haste to look out the open window on the other side of the room. Pressing against the screen he could just make out the fallen body that crawled on the grass by the bench they had left the children on.

He lept down the stairs, following behind Tyreese as he appeared from another doorway. Two more shots fired, and the body lay limp by time he made it to the porch. Mika stood with the gun rigid in her hands, and he wondered if she'd ever be able to fire the damn thing without looking so stunned about it. Carol wrapped herself around Lizzie and Judith, the baby's cries not even hushing when Tyreese gathered her in his arms.

Lizzie's eyes blinked in the way children do when they don't want anyone to know they're crying. She stared at the walker, but it wasn't out of fear. Walking away, like it hurt too much to see the body, she focused instead on a patch of pink flowers. Merle stepped off the porch then, catching Carol's eye and the distraught way she seemed to stare at him. He wished she wouldn't try so hard, that she'd realize nothing lasts long anymore. These kids were a well passed their due date, the baby a ticking time bomb all her own. There wasn't a whole lot of point in putting all this care into something that was bound to rot.

But he couldn't deny the twist in his stomach at seeing the walker two floors below him, a kind of strange helplessness that forced him down those stairs in haste.

He heaved the walker up to his shoulder, indicating with a flick of his head to Carol that he would dispose it behind the other side of the house. She gave a nod, turning her attention to where Mika was doing her best to soothe her sister.

"Just look at the flowers, Lizzie."

She did, her body shifting with each heavy breath. She noticed Merle towing the body off, a watchful gaze following him as he did. It was an angry glare, and just a little bit mournful.

* * *

Merle retreated back to the couch after getting the fire started. There had conveniently been a kindling piled up over where he dumped the walker body and he hauled it back into the house before night fell.

"Are you still upset?" Carol prompted Lizzie from where they sat breaking open pecans. The girl had been quiet for most of the day, a frown seeming permanently stuck to her features.

The warmth encompassed the room, tucking them all in to a cozy feeling. He laid back against the arm, shutting his eyes and allowing the chatter between Lizzie and Carol to fall away, tuning his ears to the burning embers instead.

His exhaustion from earlier was nothing compared to the bone heavy tired he felt now. Carol was meticulous in making sure every corner of the house was swept for provisions of any kind. It wasn't all like his style of just propping a door shut and letting nature takes its course. He wasn't a rummager, preferring to stumble upon something useful.

Carol was insistent though, and the plumbing was fixed where they could, the gas stove tested, and the wood gathered. The girls took their bedroom in less time than it took for the sun to set. Judith was bundled into the crib that had almost been expecting her, an abundance of baby supplies found in a pantry that were gratefully stuffed into the diaper bag.

He stirred when Mika came running into the room, waving a ridiculous looking doll at Carol.

"I'm gonna name her Griselda Gunderson!"

He groaned, loud enough for her to hear, but Mika just rolled her eyes at him, plopping herself at the small coffee table and running her fingers through the yarned hair. When Tyreese came in babbling about water, Merle sank completely down into the sofa, hoping to portray his desire to be asleep at that point.

"Now all we need is to bag us a deer," he said, gracing Merle with a pointed look.

"I ain't your fuckin' lackey. Get one yourself."

"We'll get one. Mika and I can go out tomorrow and search one out," Carol said in that tone that allows no room for an argument.

Mika smiled back at her apprehensively, before looking up to Tyreese, her head tilting like a confused puppy as she asked him, "What's wrong?"

Full of wonder as he looked around the living room, Tyreese sighed, "I'm not used to this."

"And which one of us is, sunshine?" Merle scoffed, turning onto his shoulder, fingers slipping beneath the cuff of his arm to scratch. He should have grabbed that mason jar from Carol before he settled in.

"Used to what?" Mika asked.

"We're in a living room in a house…"

"Yeah," Mika rolled her eyes, and Merle almost laughed at the attitude of her voice, "So relax."

He finally let himself, falling into the armchair. Absently thumbing at a magazine on the coffee table before picking it, the look of bewilderment not once leaving his somber eyes.

The quiet finally settled into the room except for the cracking of the fire. Merle let his heavy lids close, shifting his shoulders deeper into the soft material of the couch. It felt better than the train tracks and the dirt. Felt better than a prison bed. Or an army barrack.

Better than the flimsy mattress he had grown up with, the one he and Daryl shared before he shipped off to war.

"We should live here."

He turned over his shoulder at Mika's suggestion. The inspirited bounce she gave her head as Tyreese stared at her before looking up to where Merle had angled himself. They both glanced towards Carol, Merle propping up on his shoulder to be able to see her over the arm of the couch. She gave the faintest of smiles, the corners of her lips just barely stretching out passed their normal position, but a radiance seared from her eyes, scorching through him.

She wanted it, wanted the hope that this could be their home. But, maybe, she didn't know that homes could be broken.

He knew how to settle, he'd done it before. It's not hard to stick to one spot, any good hunter knows how to be still. But something in his gut gnawed at him. He didn't know what this house would do to them.

There was no use fighting it though, at least not that night. He sank back down, for the second time, folding up around himself and digging his head into the fabric of the back cushion. Concentrating on the way is rubbed against his cheek his brain fuzzed, pulling him into a dozy slumber, and slowly the sounds of the embers and Mika playing and Lizzie breaking open pecans fell away.

And, for just a few seconds before he completely gave way to unconsciousness, he almost felt normal.

* * *

The quiet didn't last long. Tyreese's jerks and stirs, bemoaning about Karen, started quicker than Merle would have liked. He woke with a growl, twisting on the couch to glare at Tyreese in the armchair. For a second he considered taking the iron fire poker and cracking it across Mama Bear's head until he fell into a quiet unconsciousness.

It was a harsh difference falling asleep to a warm room and waking up to something cold, filled with someone else's nightmare.

Above him, the ceiling creaked, a small trail off dust crumbled down, illuminated in a fragment of moonlight. Tyreese jerked again, his foot almost knocking into the crib. Merle hoisted himself up from the sofa, leaving the two crybabies behind to console each other when they wailed themselves awake as he mounted the staircase.

The floors sighed beneath weight they hadn't felt for some time. He could hear her shuffling around in that room, pacing by the sound of it. The house felt cramped, and he stood at the top of the stairs, looking between the front door that he could just make out, and the one in front of him that Carol hid behind. Springs creaked, and he could just picture her sitting on the bed, bathed by the moon and surrounded by solitude. The long, slender gleam of her back and the muscles that shifted with ever arch and twist of her body. How her skin would jump at his bristly fingers holding against her.

Loneliness always found a way to seep through even the most comfortable of nights.

His body tightened involuntarily, his breath shallowing at the back of his throat. Fingers gripped around the dust crusted doorknob. He was careful not to throw it open, stepping into the room he had killed the lone walker in.

"He ever gonna stop with these damn nightmares?"

It was a dramatic entrance but he didn't know how to be quiet about things—finesse was never his strong suit. She sat, folded into herself at the foot of the bed, staring out the window. It was a watchful kind of stare, waiting for the inevitable spook to come out of the shadowed corners. But it didn't seem like it was ever going to come, not here in this haven they had found, just cramped enough for the six of them. She twisted her neck, just barely, almost rolling her eyes before taking up her watch again.

"He's gone through a lot," she said quietly like she was afraid she might contribute to his horrors even more.

"Who hasn't?" Merle snorted, pacing forward towards the bed. He looked down at her body, compacted at the far side of the bed, tilted away from him to keep an eye out the window. He ached to be anything but stagnant.

Kneeling onto the bed, the springs screamed beneath him. She turned to him, a glare in her eyes. He wasn't invited to share her bed, but she wasn't exactly stopping him.

He sat, scratching at the bumpy, flaked skin of his stump. Carol was still eyeing him with suspicious, but a noticeable lack of disgust.

"You wonderin' where they are?" he said abruptly, the silence having stretched far enough for him to handle. There was no use in him sitting around in the room just _being_ with her. He might as well get something out of it.

Her eyebrows quirked together, questioning him. Merle tilted his chin to the window, "The others. Rick, that gangly kid of his, Maggie and her Mail Order Husband…Daryl?"

She knew that she couldn't keep out the glimmer from her eyes at the mention of his name. The quick, sharp glint that flashed despite her stony expression, the way the very edge of her cheeks deepened and she turned her face away from him. Everyone had a weakness. He had her clutched in his hand and she knew it. He didn't have a clue about what he was doing, dangling Daryl between them like a wishbone for them to break apart. Maybe then they'd know who had the bigger piece of him.

"I thought you were supposed to be the one looking for him," she half-grunted, folding an arm around her stomach as she stood, walking to the window with her back to him. "Why are you even still here Merle? You don't have to stay with us."

His huffed breathe trebled passed his lips. There wasn't an answer that he really wanted to give her. He could have left no more than ten minutes ago but he hadn't. He hoped she'd just accept his pass of lazy happenstance, that he didn't have a better place to be. Which was only half true. He just didn't know where that better place was.

A part of him that he tried to ignore dropped from his gut at her question. She saw it though. He was never able to get anything passed her, as she saw through every fiber of the masks he tried to shell around him, found every crack in his walls and knew every play in his book.

"Could ask you the same thing, really. Why didn't you just take the girls? Leave me and Tyreese on our own? You don't owe us nothin'."

"I wouldn't say that," she sighed, softening up and letting her arms fall to the side. Turning to face him finally she fell against the wall next to the window. In her hands she held the hem of her shirt, fingers playing languorously with a thread that hung loose. She spoke again, her eyes set on the ceiling and he was sure she wasn't really talking to him at all. "It's probably better this way. We would never have been able to keep that place going. It was too big, too much, too…comfortable."

"You look pretty damn _cozy_ here too. Making fuckin' sugar pecans and letting that little thing play with a doll. We all playing house now? Thought I wasn't the only one left with some damn sense," he bit out, the words pointed sharply. He didn't fit in to a place like this, and maybe none of them did anymore.

But at least _they_ used to, even if it was lifetimes ago.

"You looked fine stretched out on that couch. But, is that what you think this is? That I'm just living it up, all nice in this house, and this big old bed to warm me at night? I'm doing what I have to do for those girls. I am trying to keep Tyreese together long enough for him to grieve. I am trying to make sure you…" She stopped, the steam dissipating and the cool air settling back between them. He could see the exasperation on her face, the ire lines that framed her lips.

"Make sure I what?" he snarled, forcing himself closer to her, standing just inches from her in an attempt to keep her from folding back into herself. He wanted to grab her and make her stay, do about anything to shock her into playing the game the way he wanted to. But it was near impossible when she wouldn't dare move any pieces.

That steely resolved melted over her again. Carol looked at him, the long draw of her gaze as she searched him from head to toe resting uneasily with him. He rolled his eyes, a pull in his gut yanking him towards the door before that room smothered him altogether. She was so imperceptible in the way she could gather under his skin. His brother may like the way she could get at him without him having to offer much up, but it gnawed at Merle to the core. Vulnerability wasn't something he carried well.

He held himself at the door, his fingers on the knob. "One day, sweet cheeks, you're gonna do something selfish. And you know what?" He paused at the door, fingers pressed against the doorknob, the ribboned pattern indenting his skin. "You're gonna damn well like it."


End file.
